Cranford
used to call him) was all the same as an Apollyon and Abaddon. I
remember my father rather thought he should be asked to print this last
set; but the parish had, perhaps, had enough of them with hearing.”
Peter Marmaduke Arley Jenkyns (“poor Peter!” as Miss Matty began to call
him) was at school at Shrewsbury by this time. The rector took up his
pen, and rubbed up his Latin once more, to correspond with his boy. It
was very clear that the lad’s were what are called show letters. They
were of a highly mental description, giving an account of his studies,
and his intellectual hopes of various kinds, with an occasional
quotation from the classics; but, now and then, the animal nature broke
out in such a little sentence as this, evidently written in a trembling
hurry, after the letter had been inspected: “Mother dear, do send me a
cake, and put plenty of citron in.” The “mother dear” probably answered
her boy in the form of cakes and “goody,” for there were none of her
letters among this set; but a whole collection of the rector’s, to whom
the Latin in his boy’s letters was like a trumpet to the old war-horse.
I do not know much about Latin, certainly, and it is, perhaps, an
ornamental language, but not very useful, I think—at least to judge from
the bits I remember out of the rector’s letters. One was, “You have not
got that town in your map of Ireland; but _Bonus Bernardus non videt
omnia_, as the Proverbia say.” Presently it became very evident that
“poor Peter” got himself into many scrapes. There were letters of
stilted penitence to his father, for some wrong-doing; and among them
all was a badly-written, badly-sealed, badly-directed, blotted note:—“My
dear, dear, dear, dearest mother, I will be a better boy; I will,
indeed; but don’t, please, be ill for me; I am not worth it; but I will
be good, darling mother.”
Miss Matty could not speak for crying, after she had read this note.
She gave it to me in silence, and then got up and took it to her sacred
recesses in her own room, for fear, by any chance, it might get burnt.
“Poor Peter!” she said; “he was always in scrapes; he was too easy.
They led him wrong, and then left him in the lurch. But he was too fond
of mischief. He could never resist a joke. Poor Peter!”
CHAPTER VI.
POOR PETER
POOR Peter’s career lay before him rather pleasantly mapped out by kind
friends, but _Bonus Bernardus non videt omnia_, in this map too. He was
to win honours at the Shrewsbury School, and carry them thick to
Cambridge, and after that, a living awaited him, the gift of his
godfather, Sir Peter Arley. Poor Peter! his lot in life was very
different to what his friends had hoped and planned. Miss Matty told me
all about it, and I think it was a relief when she had done so.
He was the darling of his mother, who seemed to dote on all her
children, though she was, perhaps, a little afraid of Deborah’s superior
acquirements. Deborah was the favourite of her father, and when Peter
disappointed him, she became his pride. The sole honour Peter brought
away from Shrewsbury was the reputation of being the best good fellow
that ever was, and of being the captain of the school in the art of
practical joking. His father was disappointed, but set about remedying
the matter in a manly way. He could not afford to send Peter to read
with any tutor, but he could read with him himself; and Miss Matty told
me much of the awful preparations in the way of dictionaries and
lexicons that were made in her father’s study the morning Peter began.
“My poor mother!” said she. “I remember how she used to stand in the
hall, just near enough the study-door, to catch the tone of my father’s
voice. I could tell in a moment if all was going right, by her face.
And it did go right for a long time.”
“What went wrong at last?” said I. “That tiresome Latin, I dare say.”
“No! it was not the Latin. Peter was in high favour with my father, for
he worked up well for him. But he seemed to think that the Cranford
people might be joked about, and made fun of, and they did not like it;
nobody does. He was always hoaxing them; ‘hoaxing’ is not a pretty
word, my dear, and I hope you won’t tell your father I used it, for I
should not like him to think that I was not choice in my language, after
living with such a woman as Deborah. And be sure you never use it
yourself. I don’t know how it slipped out of my mouth, except it was
that I was thinking of poor Peter and it was always his expression. But
he was a very gentlemanly boy in many things. He was like dear Captain
Brown in always being ready to help any old person or a child. Still,
he did like joking and making fun; and he seemed to think the old ladies
in Cranford would believe anything. There were many old ladies living
here then; we are principally ladies now, I know, but we are not so old
as the ladies used to be when I was a girl. I could laugh to think of
some of Peter’s jokes. No, my dear, I won’t tell you of them, because
they might not shock you as they ought to do, and they were very
shocking. He even took in my father once, by dressing himself up as a
lady that was passing through the town and wished to see the Rector of
Cranford, ‘who had published that admirable Assize Sermon.’ Peter said
he was awfully frightened himself when he saw how my father took it all
in, and even offered to copy out all his Napoleon Buonaparte sermons for
her—him, I mean—no, her, for Peter was a lady then. He told me he was
more terrified than he ever was before, all the time my father was
speaking. He did not think my father would have believed him; and yet if
he had not, it would have been a sad thing for Peter. As it was, he was
none so glad of it, for my father kept him hard at work copying out all
those twelve Buonaparte sermons for the lady—that was for Peter himself,
you know. He was the lady. And once when he wanted to go fishing,
Peter said, ‘Confound the woman!’—very bad language, my dear, but Peter
was not always so guarded as he should have been; my father was so angry
with him, it nearly frightened me out of my wits: and yet I could hardly
keep from laughing at the little curtseys Peter kept making, quite
slyly, whenever my father spoke of the lady’s excellent taste and sound
discrimination.”
[Picture: Confound the woman]
“Did Miss Jenkyns know of these tricks?” said I.
“Oh, no! Deborah would have been too much shocked. No, no one knew but
me. I wish I had always known of Peter’s plans; but sometimes he did
not tell me. He used to say the old ladies in the town wanted something
to talk about; but I don’t think they did. They had the _St James’s
Chronicle_ three times a week, just as we have now, and we have plenty
to say; and I remember the clacking noise there always was when some of
the ladies got together. But, probably, schoolboys talk more than
ladies. At last there was a terrible, sad thing happened.” Miss Matty
got up, went to the door, and opened it; no one was there. She rang the
bell for Martha, and when Martha came, her mistress told her to go for
eggs to a farm at the other end of the town.
“I will lock the door after you, Martha. You are not afraid to go, are
you?”
“No, ma’am, not at all; Jem Hearn will be only too proud to go with me.”
Miss Matty drew herself up, and as soon as we were alone, she wished
that Martha had more maidenly reserve.
“We’ll put out the candle, my dear. We can talk just as well by
firelight, you know. There! Well, you see, Deborah had gone from home
for a fortnight or so; it was a very still, quiet day, I remember,
overhead; and the lilacs were all in flower, so I suppose it was spring.
My father had gone out to see some sick people in the parish; I
recollect seeing him leave the house with his wig and shovel-hat and
cane. What possessed our poor Peter I don’t know; he had the sweetest
temper, and yet he always seemed to like to plague Deborah. She never
laughed at his jokes, and thought him ungenteel, and not careful enough
about improving his mind; and that vexed him.
“Well! he went to her room, it seems, and dressed himself in her old
gown, and shawl, and bonnet; just the things she used to wear in
Cranford, and was known by everywhere; and he made the pillow into a
little—you are sure you locked the door, my dear, for I should not like
anyone to hear—into—into a little baby, with white long clothes. It was
only, as he told me afterwards, to make something to talk about in the
town; he never thought of it as affecting Deborah. And he went and
walked up and down in the Filbert walk—just half-hidden by the rails,
and half-seen; and he cuddled his pillow, just like a baby, and talked
to it all the nonsense people do. Oh dear! and my father came stepping
stately up the street, as he always did; and what should he see but a
little black crowd of people—I daresay as many as twenty—all peeping
through his garden rails. So he thought, at first, they were only
looking at a new rhododendron that was in full bloom, and that he was
very proud of; and he walked slower, that they might have more time to
admire. And he wondered if he could make out a sermon from the
occasion, and thought, perhaps, there was some relation between the
rhododendrons and the lilies of the field. My poor father! When he
came nearer, he began to wonder that they did not see him; but their
heads were all so close together, peeping and peeping! My father was
amongst them, meaning, he said, to ask them to walk into the garden with
him, and admire the beautiful vegetable production, when—oh, my dear, I
tremble to think of it—he looked through the rails himself, and saw—I
don’t know what he thought he saw, but old Clare told me his face went
quite grey-white with anger, and his eyes blazed out under his frowning
black brows; and he spoke out—oh, so terribly!—and bade them all stop
where they were—not one of them to go, not one of them to stir a step;
and, swift as light, he was in at the garden door, and down the Filbert
walk, and seized hold of poor Peter, and tore his clothes off his
back—bonnet, shawl, gown, and all—and threw the pillow among the people
over the railings: and then he was very, very angry indeed, and before
all the people he lifted up his cane and flogged Peter!
“My dear, that boy’s trick, on that sunny day, when all seemed going
straight and well, broke my mother’s heart, and changed my father for
life. It did, indeed. Old Clare said, Peter looked as white as my
father; and stood as still as a statue to be flogged; and my father
struck hard! When my father stopped to take breath, Peter said, ‘Have
you done enough, sir?’ quite hoarsely, and still standing quite quiet.
I don’t know what my father said—or if he said anything. But old Clare
said, Peter turned to where the people outside the railing were, and
made them a low bow, as grand and as grave as any gentleman; and then
walked slowly into the house. I was in the store-room helping my mother
to make cowslip wine. I cannot abide the wine now, nor the scent of the
flowers; they turn me sick and faint, as they did that day, when Peter
came in, looking as haughty as any man—indeed, looking like a man, not
like a boy. ‘Mother!’ he said, ‘I am come to say, God bless you for
ever.’ I saw his lips quiver as he spoke; and I think he durst not say
anything more loving, for the purpose that was in his heart. She
looked at him rather frightened, and wondering, and asked him what was
to do. He did not smile or speak, but put his arms round her and kissed
her as if he did not know how to leave off; and before she could speak
again, he was gone. We talked it over, and could not understand it, and
she bade me go and seek my father, and ask what it was all about. I